Salad for breakfast??

The kids and I did a 7 days of salad for breakfast challenge! You might think that's weird but I’m Japanese and people think a Japanese traditonal breakfast of rice, miso soup, veggies and fish or better yet, natto (gasp!), is weird. Natto is a slimy, fermented soy bean dish that I admit I can see why a lot of people including my own family, may not like. BUT, I was actually super excited to see miso soup for breakfast in the Disney cruise!

Have you ever thought that maybe eating an American breakfast of syrup loaded pancakes, waffles, french toast, or sugary muffins (which is basically dessert if we're being real) is weird? Don’t get me wrong, I love it because I'm also American and love dessert, but I think we can all agree it isn’t the healthiest... right? Don't get me going on Poptarts. Well, let’s see how eating salad for "the most important meal of the day" will make me feel by the end of the week!

A little background:

My husband started eating salad for breakfast after readingBorn to Run by Christopher Mcdougallyears ago - he doesn’t do it all the time anymore but I usually bring home a work salad for him to eat the next day because it’s a great deal! For $8 we get to load it up with umlimited toppings plus I don’t have to shop and chop all the stuff. Quick mom hack here - outsource what you can to stay sane! As you see in the picture/video, you know I’m getting my money's worth with how I load that salad UUUUUUP - it becomes like 1.5-2 meals for me!

For the challenge I got work salads on my in office days and also got packaged to order salads from The Good Salad for several meals - my kids especialy love their salads. Yes, I know they're part of the weird "I like salads" club of kids. Don't worry they don't love all salads so they are human. At about double the cost though, it’s harder for me to do frequently but they are absolutely delicious with some unique and fun toppings I don’t get elsewhere like candied pecans, beet chips, and medjool dates. Honestly, it really isn’t too different in pricing from other restaurant salads. It just is hard to beat a subsidized work salad with unlimited toppings!

What happened:

Kids made it consistently as breakfast for about 3 days but did have some salad bites at different parts of the day throughout the rest of the week. Yours truly stood strong and did breakfast salads for the whole week! To be fair, this isn’t completely new to me and I usually get a salad at work for lunch and eat the remainder for breakfast sometimes - just not consistently for a week.

1. I had energy. I was combining with the 30 day sleeping early waking early challenge but I think it also gave me good energy to fuel my day and not want all the bad stuff mid-morning or afternoon even with a pretty good sweet and boba tooth. I’m all about everything in moderation though and when I started with the salad and my moringa green drink as usual, I felt good! Less cravings or mid morning hunger. How you start the day definitely matters why not start by feeding your body good stuff?

2. Lots of fiber - Whole foods are good for you for so many reasons but if you aren’t regular friends, this fiber is super helpful for you. It keeps me full, and not heavy starting the day so I was less hangry or irritable. I was making better decisions because I fed my body, brain, and spirit in a good way first thing in the morning.

3. Eat the rainbow - We loved counting the colors we were eating - we covered the rainbow just at breakfast! Have you tracked this with your kids? It’s so fun and if you joined my Whole Wellness Mamas summits before, you’ll know those colors mean something!! I spoke with Dr Deanna Minich about the science behind the colors and why we should eat all the colors in our diet. So eat the rainbow (natural foods, not skittles) and make the kids do it as part of a game - make it fun :)

4. I started craving it. When you start, even if you think it’s weird, keep going and see what happens. I think you’re going to really start liking it! All that to say I think you should try it! Once you get over the it’s weird factor and are open to seeing what happens, you just might like how you feel!

Are you team salad?

It doesn’t have to be fancy and if you can meal prep a lot or get some outside help, you’ll find it isn’t super burdensome either! If you try, let me know in the comments and if you still can’t get over the idea, I want to hear why!